


Reborn

by AndreaLyn



Category: The Almighty Johnsons
Genre: M/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-23
Updated: 2013-09-13
Packaged: 2017-12-03 08:38:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/696386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Idunn's spirit, newly freed, finds a vessel in Ty Johnson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt at the Almighty kink meme.

At first, Ty doesn’t notice anything strange.   
  
No, that’s a lie. He notices that he’s craving  _apples_  more than he ever has before. He wants apples and if he can’t get them, it’s like nothing will ever taste right ever again. Being newly mortal, Ty sort of wants to keep tasting things, so rather than succumbing to a cold, dark food-death, he goes to the grocer and buys several types of apples. There’s some in the fridge, some on his counter, and they adorn the cupboards.  
  
It’s only that, though. It’s only apples.  
  
He ignores anyone calling and spends his time running. He knows he should be grateful that it’s too cold to work in the walk-in, but sometimes he misses his angels. When he reaches the highest point of his run, Ty slows to a stop and focuses on gaining his breath back.  
  
Around him, young couples, old couples, everyone is falling in love.  
  
Ty grimaces. “Showoffs,” he mutters and picks up the pace on his way home. The last thing he needs is to be reminded of Dawn and Ty’s lack thereof when it comes to relationships.   
  
He showers and when he gets out, hair dripping wet, he starts to bake.   
  
“Apple pie,” is all Ingrid says when she comes back from the ceremony. “Don’t ask,” she says, before Ty can get a word in edgewise. “Axl is disappointed because it turns out that we’re not the only gods in the game. It’s complicated.” She tilts her head to the side. “Are you doing something different with your hair, dear?”  
  
“No,” Ty replies, oven mitts on and a cheerful smile on his face. He is, at this moment, simply happy to be himself and not Hodr. “Pie will be ready in about twenty minutes.”  
  
Within twenty minutes, the pie is ready and Olaf is there.  
  
“I dreamt of apple pie,” he says, with a hint of warning in his tone.   
  
“That’s all I got too,” Ingrid contributes, wielding her glass of wine expertly. “Apple pie.” They both look at Ty curiously, like there’s an answer they’re missing out on. Ty ignores the both of them and sprinkles cinnamon atop the pie, slicing it and bringing it to the both of them.  
  
“Olaf, I know you’re stoned beyond reckoning, please try not to touch the pie pan? It’s hot.”  
  
“Something’s different about you,” Olaf says.  
  
“Could it possibly be that I’m not a miserable shell of myself?” Ty suggests. “I’m not a god anymore, grandpa. That’s all. That’s it.” Olaf looks like he has something more to say on the subject, but he holds back. Or, more to the point, he never gets the chance before Mike and Axl come barreling in his front door. “Does no one lock up after themselves?” Ty sighs, locking the door before the rest of the goddess and god parade can wander into his house.  
  
“Someone get him to cheer the fuck up,” Mike pleads. “Because I can’t.”  
  
“She’s not Frigg.”  
  
“Oh, Axl,” Ingrid sighs, reaching over to brush her hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, dear. Would you like some apple pie? Ty’s made it and it warms your soul, it’s like it gives you wings,” she praises with a beatific smile. If Ty were paying attention (and he should be), he’d know that something is going on.  
  
“How’s he doing?” Ty asks quietly.  
  
“Sulking. Can’t blame him, though,” Mike says, peering over Ty’s shoulder to where Axl is sitting. “Have you spoken to Anders? Someone out there is hunting gods…”  
  
Ty doesn’t hear anything else that Mike says. He slips into some strange fugue state where he is breathless with want and need and if he doesn’t get it, he’s going to take matters into his own hands. The only thought in his head is Anders and the only name on his lips is…  
  
“Bragi,” Ty gets out, gasping as he clutches hold of Mike’s shoulder. It’s like a lifeline that brings him back to reality.  
  
“Apple pie,” Ingrid and Olaf say at the same time.  
  
“Has this ever happened before?”  
  
“I think once or twice in the last hundred years, but it’s certainly not  _normal_ ,” Ingrid says. “Maybe when Ty rid himself of his godhood, something in the universe was off balance and this happened.” She wrings her hands together. “Oh dear,” she manages, looking to Axl worriedly, then back to Ty. “This does complicate things.”  
  
“Right,” Olaf says. “Keep them apart until we find some more answers. Or, at the very least, until we can talk to them while there’s some sense in their heads.”  
  
“Excuse me, what’s going on?” Mike demands, hand raised high in the air.  
  
“I think that Ty’s brief brush with mortality didn’t last very long,” Ingrid says, pulling on her coat as she hurries out the door.   
  
“What?” Mike demands.  
  
“Even more worrying,” Olaf offers helpfully, “he may now be a goddess. Have to run! We’ll call you when we have Anders secure. Do not let him leave,” he instructs Axl and Mike, both. Ty’s not entirely sure how this happened or when it happened, but he knows that if he’s suddenly lusting after his brother, there better be a good explanation.  
  
“Okay, this might be weirder than my thing,” Axl admits, slowly sitting up on the couch. “Are you Idunn?”  
  
Mike is circling him, like he’s searching for a nametag that clearly states that. Ty rolls his eyes and tries to shake off the whole incident with a laugh, but the worry is deep and has unsettled him. Now that Anders has been brought up, all Ty can do is think of submitting for him and stripping down to his very soul and essence and giving him absolutely everything there is to him.   
  
“Ty, look at me,” Mike coaxes. Ty does as he’s told, ready to laugh this off, but Mike doesn’t give him the chance. “Remember that beach vacation we took when you were younger and Anders was nineteen and you were seventeen and how the two of you wrestled in the sand to see who got first dibs on the girl you saw?”  
  
Ty reacts viscerally, practically hauling back. “Jesus! Mike!” he howls, well-aware that his hard-on is entirely thanks to the memory of Anders against his skin.   
  
“This is a problem,” Mike says, wild-eyed and worried. He sits down next to Axl and exhales deeply. “You’re his brother.”  
  
“You think I forgot that?” Ty snarls. “This is fucked up. He’s my brother, but thinking of sex with anyone else is giving me nothing.” Not even the thought of Dawn can bring him out of this, he realizes, and hates Anders just a little bit more. “Fuck,” he swears. “Is this because I had sex with her?”  
  
“With…who?” Axl forms the words slowly.  
  
“Helen,” Ty explains. “I slept with her before Anders did. Do you think…”  
  
“Maybe the universe needed somewhere to put her goddess spirit and…you were the next in line?” Mike suggests, the wide-eyed look of wariness still not gone from his face. “You’re sure about this? About what you’re feeling?”  
  
“Trust me, I wish I weren’t,” he grumbles. “How do you think Anders is taking it?”  
  
Axl and Mike exchanged a look.   
  
“Fine.”  
  
“I’m sure he’s being mature about it.”  
  
**  
  
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Anders growls at Ingrid and Olaf. “Hey! No one said you could come in,” he snaps at Stacey, who’s lingering in the front porch.   
  
“I couldn’t resist,” Stacey replies, clearly delighted by what’s transpired. “I was coming to see if we’d heard anything about the god-hunters when I found Ingrid and Olaf talking about how your brother’s the new incarnation of Idunn. This is too good to pass up!”  
  
Anders ignores her, crossing his arms over his chest as he paces. He places a hand out as if to try and stop the situation, but it’s doing nothing for him. “I’ve had Ty pissed at me before and usually for rightful reasons, but fuck, I’m taking him away from being a mortal  _and_ Dawn? Shit, I hope the world is ready for a new Bragi, because he is going to kill me. He’s already got the practice,” he quips.  
  
“Anders,” Olaf warns.  
  
“Right. So, what,” Anders says, pacing back and forth and trying to massage all thoughts of Ty from out of his head. Every time he closes his eyes, he’s flooded with a new set of images. Ty’s always been his favourite brother and now it’s like the universe is fucking with him by telling him that he ought to be fucking his  _brother_. “Fuck!” he swears, louder than before. “I’ll move.”  
  
“Where?” Stacey laughs. “I’m pretty sure Ty can board a plane. You really think he’s going to leave you alone now that you’re his lord?”  
  
“Not helping!” Ingrid sing-songs.   
  
“Sorry,” Stacey replies with a smirk, not sounding very sorry at all. “D’you think this means he’s going to be happier? Or do we have to wait for Anders to fuck him before he lightens up?”  
  
Anders grasps his jacket in hand. “This is ridiculous,” he says. “I’m going to see Ty to clear this up.”  
  
“That might not be a good idea,” Olaf says.  
  
“One good reason, grandpa. One good reason why not.”  
  
“You’re brothers,” he says.   
  
“Yeah, that never stopped me from being an asshole before,” Anders admits, heading out the door with a trail of gods behind him. He’s not even sure why he offers to give them a lift in his car, yet, there they are. “Okay! Everyone shut up! Let’s be honest about what’s likely to happen. Ty will punch me for taking Dawn away from him, Mikkel will probably want to get in on the action, and can I remind everyone that we are being hunted!”  
  
“Safety in numbers,” Ingrid says with a sure nod of her head.  
  
Anders parks the car outside of Ty’s place and sits in the driver’s seat for a long moment.  
  
“Aren’t you going to go inside?” Stacey asks.  
  
“In a minute,” Anders replies. He didn’t expect the overwhelming possessive need to claim Ty as his own the instant he saw the house that Ty and Eva had shared. Sure, the death-bitch hadn’t been Anders’ favourite person even before all of this, but now it fills him with a white hot rage that threatens to take over.  
  
He sits stewing in the car so long that Mike comes out to sit in the passenger seat, turning the keys to the engine off for him.  
  
“Your brother is the human incarnation of Idunn,” Mike says.  
  
“Wow, Mike, thanks for holding back on that. Way to punch right where it hurts,” Anders says, but the joy is gone from his voice. “I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t even want this.” Some part of himself cries out that he’s a liar. Ty’s been his favourite, always, and there’s always been a part of him that wondered if it could be him and Ty against the world. “Shit,” he exhales. “What am I walking into?”  
  
“I’ll try and get the others to vacate so there aren’t any witnesses,” Mike promises. “As far as what you can expect…well, what did you have with Helen?”  
  
“Crème brulee,” Anders says, laughing darkly. “The first one again, looks like. This is fucked up. Even for the Johnson family.”  
  
“Yeah, well, at least he won’t freeze your dick off,” Mike says. It’s just crude and well-timed enough that it makes Anders laugh before he stares at the door in front of him. “You’re not going to hurt him,” he says, half-assurance and half-warning.   
  
“He’s our brother.”  
  
“And he’s also Idunn, now.”   
  
Anders stares at the door and nods. “Right. Clear them out before I go in. This could get weird.”  
  
He stays in the car and waits patiently until the very last of them – Ingrid, no surprise – is out the door. When they’re gone, Mike gives him the thumbs-up. It’s all clear except for the fact that Anders has no fucking idea what he’s walking into. He locks the car and stays on the other side of the front door, grabbing the knob with both hands so he can keep it shut.   
  
“Ty?”  
  
“Anders,” Ty breathes out, sounding like he’s  _right there_. “ _Bragi_. My lord, Bragi.”  
  
“I could’ve used this kind of devotion ten years ago instead of you slinging profanities at me,” Anders quips, pressing his ear to the door and listening to the steady in and out of Ty’s breath. He tries not to think too deeply about how it soothes a part of him. “I smell apples.”  
  
“Yeah,” Ty replies weakly, sounding unsure. “Apple pie. It’s not exactly apple martinis, but…”  
  
“Your apple pie was always my favourite thing to come home to,” Anders says, heart aching with memories of so long ago when their parents would fight and fight (and occasionally fuck), but no matter what, Ty could make this apple pie that smelled like they were home. It tastes perfect, too. Axl had been too young to enjoy it and Mike was too busy with school.   
  
Apple pie was Anders and Ty’s. It was theirs.  
  
“If I come in, are you going to do something stupid like maul me?” Anders asks.  
  
“If your dick was half as big as your ego…”  
  
“Don’t make me prove it is,” Anders cuts him off. “Ty. Tyrone. Can I come in?”  
  
Anders listens for the unlatching of the chain and smiles crookedly when Ty opens the door barely more than a few inches. “Bragi,” Ty greets him.   
  
Anders takes a good look at his brother, noticing how his eyes have shaded just that much more green and how he looks warmer than he has in years. It’s practically suffusing Anders with a feeling like…yeah. He might be starting to understand what Ty had been talking about when talking about his soul having been given wings.   
  
“You look good,” Anders says, easing his way inside while he still has the opportunity.  
  
“Yeah, you do too.”  
  
Ty sounds miserable and resigned to it, all the same.  
  
“Hey,” Anders murmurs, reaching out to cup Ty’s cheek. “I’m sorry that this happened to you, to us. I never wanted to take you away from Dawn. I always knew you’d be my brother and I’d have you. I would never, not ever…apart from maybe once or twice or five times…taken you away from her.”  
  
“Anders, it’s okay. Dawn doesn’t even know who I am and the only person I can think about is you,” Ty admits, closing his eyes. “You’re so warm. I’m still getting used to feeling warm. I haven’t even…” He flushes this beautiful colour that Anders desperately wants to kiss.   
  
“What?”  
  
“Had sex,” Ty finishes. “Not since I became mortal.”  
  
“Ty, you’re killing me. You’re actively fucking killing me.”  
  
“And yet, we’re not fucking.”  
  
“That can be fixed,” Anders promises, growling as he pins Ty to the wall and kisses him the way he’s been wanting to since he stepped into this house. It’s biting and bruising and possessing and needy. He hasn’t felt needy in so very long and as he digs his fingernails into Ty’s skin, his only will is to mark him. “Do I need to use my poetry on you?”  
  
“Fuck no,” Ty says sharply. “C’mon,” he coaxes. “Fuck me.”  
  
“The last one who did was that death-bitch,” Anders growls. “Wasn’t it?”  
  
“Yeah,” Ty agrees. “Yeah.”  
  
“We’re getting that mark off you,” Anders says, slamming Ty into the wall by his shoulders and ripping his shirt off, taking the time to press slow kisses over the bared skin. “I’m going to fuck you so hard that you come screaming my name and it’ll be the first thing you think of when you wake up. Her mark will be gone and you’ll be loved. You’re not death and destruction anymore. You’re not the cold and the dark.”  
  
Ty moans when Anders pushes into him, barely doing more than shoving aside his jeans and pants and using spit to slick him up. It’s got to hurt, but Ty doesn’t say anything. He lets Anders fuck him and touch him, tease him and praise him.  
  
“C’mon, Ty,” Anders murmurs, when they’re both on the edge. “You’re a god again.”  
  
“Anders,” Ty chants, again and again, like a prayer. “Anders, god…”  
  
“Now he’s got it,” Anders smirks against Ty’s back, sliding a hand around Ty’s dick and jerking him off until he comes like a gun going off, sudden and so very noisy. He cradles Ty and eases both of them down to the floor where, without even being asked, Ty sucks him off and Anders is so shocked at the action that he comes within seconds.  
  
Clothes torn asunder, Anders exhales and peers at Ty.   
  
“So, what do we do now?” Anders asks breathlessly.  
  
“Round two in a bed?”  
  
“I was thinking of a more general sense.”   
  
Ty presses his forehead to Anders’ chest and groans. “I’m a goddess, now, and I’m your brother, yet I’m your destiny. Isn’t that enough to cope with right now? Look, let’s say Axl finds his Frigg. You and I get to be proper gods and then who gives a fuck what the gods do? We’ll smite them. Or Axl can,” he says. “Bed?”  
  
“Yeah,” Anders says, looking around him. “Let’s fuck your ex-wife’s scent out of this place.”  
  
“Still a crude prick.”  
  
“And possibly the gayest god ever,” Anders agrees with a cheeky smirk and a wink. “Lucky us.”


	2. Chapter 2

Despite everything Ty’s heard about the club business – bad hours, terrible failure rates, hard to hire for – he feels like he owes Helen some kind of debt. The new life that her goddess spirit has infused in him has made him think that maybe he ought to have been better before about appreciating the little things in life. Six months after his new lease on godhood, Ty opens up a club.  
  
Anders is, naturally, thrilled.  
  
“I may just quit my job and move in here,” he says, sitting in his favourite booth with a bottle of wine attached to his hand. “Fuck Mike’s bar, this place is amazing. Plus, the whole powers thing you’ve got going on means no one really cares when we start making out because you’ve already got them practically having sex on the ground,” he says with delight, pointing a finger to the dance floor. “I mean, look at that!”  
  
Ty sighs, wishing that he could remember the days when he didn’t find this somewhat  _charming_.  
  
“I’m going to get it under control,” he swears.  
  
“Please don’t,” Anders replies, delighted. He crooks his finger and Ty goes where he’s summoned, thigh to thigh with Anders in the booth. There’s plates of desserts on the table to go along with the apple martinis he carries in honour of Helen, but Anders doesn’t have an eye for them at all. The only thing he cares about is Ty.   
  
It’s in the middle of a long makeout session that they’re interrupted.  
  
“I hate to disturb the lamprey on your face,” Michele’s voice interrupts. “But we need Ty.”  
  
“What, not me?” Anders demands.   
  
“You’re not the keeper of the apples,” Michele says smugly. She holds out a hand to Ty. “Come on, Olaf and Ingrid say that now that you’re more powered up than just about all of us, save Axl, you need to start getting more involved. They’ve got a job for you.”  
  
“Hey!” Anders shouts after them. “He’s my beloved, you know!”  
  
“Then drink your beloved’s wine and don’t get into trouble,” Michele calls back.  
  
“If you drink full bottles, put them on the order!” Ty insists, one last ditch efforted attempt to make sure his club doesn’t go completely down the drain while it’s still getting off the ground. When they’re out in the night air, he gives Michele a wary look. “Do we know what this is about?”  
  
“Something to do with searching for Frigg. They need me for Yggdrasil and you for the apples.”  
  
“Why does it feel like I’m getting punished for trying to get out?”  
  
“Oh, you certainly are,” Michele promises with a wicked grin, looping their arms together. “At least you’re getting Anders’ dick out of it, not that it’s much consolation.”  
  
“Not the dick, but his  _mouth_  is,” Ty promises, feeling that pull of the goddess spirit in him recognizing him own and making him feel safe to tell Michele everything and anything. That really ought to be more worrying than it actually is.   
  
“I’m going to like you being Idunn,” Michele says. “Very, very much.”  
  
*  
  
Mike rubs at his temples.   
  
“I’m serious, I’m not doing family meetings anymore,” he says to Ingrid, who smiles at him sympathetically.   
  
The meeting had started well and fine, but after an hour of god business, Anders had started getting bored and sliding his fingers over the inseam of Ty’s jeans. One thing led to another and now Ty’s sitting on a table in Mike’s bar while Anders all but shoves his hand into his jeans. “Oi,” Mike snaps. “You’re brothers! And your other brothers’ are watching you!”  
  
“So take a video and sell it,” Anders growls. “Get on with it!”  
  
They cover the usual topics – the search for Frigg, the god hunters, the Maori gods and what else might be out there – and end in a hurry because it looks like Anders is plenty ready to divest Ty of his shirt and get even closer to doing more and more with him. Eventually, the rest of the gods and goddesses get out of there as quickly as they can.  
  
Except Mike.  
  
“It’s my bar,” he protests. “You have an office,” he says to Anders. “ _You_ have a club!” he says to Ty. “Why are you doing this  _in my bar_?”  
  
“The face you’re making,” Anders retorts. “Obviously.”  
  
Mike sighs and shakes his head. “Lock up when you’re done? And clean your fucking mess up, would you?”  
  
*  
  
In quieter moments, it’s almost as if nothing at all has changed.   
  
They do move into Anders’ apartment, in the end. It doesn’t bear the memories of Eva and they’ve christened most of the surfaces. Ty doesn’t pose a danger of killing Anders’ fish anymore and the rest of the family has a habit of dropping by there. Plus, they made a hefty chunk of change selling Colin’s property and the satisfaction of making that money off Loki’s wins had been plenty good, too.   
  
Some days, it’s like Ty and Anders are the same as they always were.  
  
“What’s on the stove?” Anders asks distractedly, work splayed out on the kitchen table while Ty reads over the latest publications of vintages and other drinks on the couch, reading glasses sitting low on his nose. “I mean, it smells like apples, but that’s generally just you.”  
  
“Porkchops and an applesauce. Tell me when you’re getting sick of them, will you?”  
  
“What, the apples? Honestly, I’m not sure I could get tired of them,” Anders admits. “I think it’s Bragi acknowledging Idunn as a necessary part of his life and wanting every aspect of her. That means apples. Besides, you’re not exactly a shit cook.”  
  
“High praise,” Ty deadpans. “I need to check on the club later. Are you coming out?”  
  
“Nah, I have to be in early tomorrow or Dawn may physically string me up for neglecting work for fucking you all the time. Thank god she doesn’t actually remember who you are,” Anders snorts. “Or that’d be awkward.” And though Anders has laughed it off, he’s still staring intently at Ty.  
  
“What?” Ty asks worriedly.  
  
“How  _do_  you feel about Dawn, these days?”  
  
“Some part of me knows that I love her. That I did love her and a part of me will always love her, but Idunn? Idunn sort of took over and now, there’s only you, Anders. I’m sure your ego will be plenty happy to hear that,” he says, shaking his head.   
  
“And?”  
  
“And what?”  
  
“Does that piss you off?”  
  
“Honestly, Anders? I’m loved. I love. Everyone around me feels love because of me. If I have to lose out on a woman I genuinely loved with all my heart in exchange for the warmth I feel and the knowledge that there’s still a love in my heart, then….yeah, I’ll live with it,” he says. “Lateral trade.”  
  
Anders seems assuaged by that. “I think you mean upward movement,” he replies, back to his old cocky self.  
  
“Sure, Anders, whatever you say,” he says, going back to his reading.  
  
*  
  
And sometimes, it’s like nothing that ever used to be.  
  
“I didn’t know Idunn was a team-changer, too,” says Axl.  
  
“She’s not,” Olaf replies. “But she’s never been in a man’s body before. This could be…a rebellion of sorts.”  
  
“So I can’t fucking control it?” Ty replies indignantly, voice high pitched to match the rest of the changes his body has undergone overnight in the swing from male to female.   
  
“No, you can control it,” Ingrid says. “ _You_  are Idunn. As Axl found the key to unlocking the switch back and Agnetha discovered what was necessary to leave her tree-form, you will…” She trails off when Anders enters the conversation by placing two hands firmly on Ty’s arse, receiving a hard smack across the cheek for it. “I don’t know why I even bother!”  
  
“Come back later,” Anders says, mouth already plastered to Ty’s neck. “I’ll see if I can fuck him back to normal first. Worked for Axl!”  
  
“Yeah, that’s…sort of true,” Axl says, like the mere fact is one of the most depressing facts in the world. “An hour?”  
  
“He won’t need more than three minutes,” Ty says snidely.   
  
“Oh, ouch!” Anders retorts. “Mean!”  
  
“Hour it is,” Olaf agrees, shepherding everyone out of there as quickly as they can go. “Drinks?”  
  
“Definitely drinks.”  
  
And the stranger things get, for the Johnsons, the more that means that things are normal. 


End file.
